


Lom Trevors Goes to Red Rock, Montana

by IdaArmindaMoss



Category: Alias Smith and Jones
Genre: Episode Related, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-09
Updated: 2019-01-09
Packaged: 2019-10-07 15:18:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,764
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17368370
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IdaArmindaMoss/pseuds/IdaArmindaMoss
Summary: Sheriff Whittaker and Judge Carter learn some surprising facts about the time they thought they had Kid Curry in jail, accused of murder.





	Lom Trevors Goes to Red Rock, Montana

 

**Porterville, Wyoming, March 20th, 1880**

       Lom Trevors looked up as the door to his office opened, and his friend Sam Hawkins, the marshal over in the next town, walked in.  Surprised, Lom put down his pen—he was glad of an excuse to stop catching up on his books, one of the less desirable parts of the job of being sheriff of Porterville, after his return from Mexico—and stood up.  “Sam, what brings you here?  Things too quiet where you are?”

       “Pretty quiet, yeah,” returned the other lawman.  He nodded as Trevors picked up the coffee pot and looked a question.  “You know, since Hannibal Heyes and Kid Curry left the country or retired or something, there just doesn’t seem to be much excitement in this part of Wyoming.”

       “No, I guess you’re right.”  Pouring two cups of coffee, Lom returned to his seat.  He knew why Heyes and Curry had dropped out of sight, as it were, but naturally he refrained from saying so.  It was, in fact, a lot quieter around there without them in charge of the Devil’s Hole gang.

       “Speakin’ of those two, though, that’s why I dropped in to see you.  Here.”  Hawkins passed over a telegraph form.

       Reading quickly, Lom discovered that the message was from a Sheriff Whittaker up in Hancock County, Montana.  They had a man in custody there, just cleared of a charge of murder, who had, when arrested, claimed to be Kid Curry.  The Montana authorities were asking for Hawkins to come up there and identify him; if he was Curry, Hawkins could take him back to Wyoming to face trial there for armed robbery. 

       Trevors stared at the telegraph message in some consternation.  There were all sorts of things that just didn’t sound right there.  Neither Heyes nor Curry would have become involved in a murder case, for one thing.  And the last thing either would do would be to identify himself to a sheriff voluntarily.  He looked up at Hawkins.  “You’re on your way up there?”

       “I was.  In fact, I wired ’em to say I would come.  Then I got to thinkin’.  I’d rather not leave the area right now, anyway, because there’s some local trouble brewing—I think it’s a bad time for the marshal to be out of town.  You could identify Kid Curry just as easily as I could, so I swung by to see if you’d rather go.”  He smiled at Lom’s suddenly wary expression.  “You don’t have to tell me—you must know more about what happened to Heyes and Curry, and why nobody’s seen anything of them for months, than you’re lettin’ on.”

       “Well, that’s a good thing, isn’t it?  That nobody’s heard anything of them?  They aren’t holding up trains or robbing banks—not around here, that’s for sure.”

       “’Course it’s a good thing.  And I just bet you know why.  Or if you don’t know, you’ve got a good idea.  Come on, Lom, I know they were friends of yours.”

       Trevors said nothing, and Hawkins continued after a moment.  “What do you make of this here?”  He tapped the telegraph form.

       “Whatever’s going on up there, it’s not what this sheriff thinks it is, that’s obvious,” replied Lom.  “They wouldn’t have Curry without Heyes.  And if they did, they wouldn’t be able to hang on to him for long.  And neither of them would murder anyone.”

       “They do say he was cleared of a murder charge,” Hawkins pointed out.

       “Yeah, but … ‘claimed to be Kid Curry’?  No way the Kid would give his name to a lawman on purpose.  You’re right.  I would like to go, just to find out what’s going on.”  _If they’re in trouble, they should have wired me, and they haven’t.  All right, now I’m curious_.

       Hawkins handed over the telegraph.  “Be my guest.  But I’d sure like to hear about it when you come back.”

       “It’s a deal.”

***   ***   ***

       Stepping off the train in Red Rock, Montana, Lom Trevors looked around for the man who was supposed to be meeting him.  He had wired Sheriff Whittaker that he was taking Hawkins’s place, and had said which train he would be on.

       “Sheriff Trevors?  I’m Deputy Hollis.”  A burly man with a badge walked toward him, holding out his hand.  “Thanks for coming.  Judge Carter says maybe we bothered you for nothin’, because it’s startin’ to look pretty definite that this young fellow we have in the jail ain’t Kid Curry.  That’s what the judge says, anyway.  But you’d better have a look, just to be sure.  Do you want to get settled in the hotel first?  You’re probably gonna spend the night before you go back, whatever you find out.”

       Lom hesitated.  The hotel, and a hot bath, sounded inviting, but he thought he’d better get this part over with.  “No, let me see the prisoner first.”

       A few minutes later, flanked by Sheriff Whittaker and his deputy, Trevors confronted a man whose face he knew well, but not because it belonged to Kid Curry.  There were some minor similarities:  the curly brown hair, the bright blue shirt, the blue eyes.  But this man, as Lom already knew, much to his annoyance, was not Kid Curry.  He was a diffident young clerk from Minnesota, than whom no one less like a dangerous outlaw could be imagined.  Lom wondered, privately, what the local sheriff had been thinking to let himself be taken in by such a clumsy imposture.

       “Fred Philpotts, what are you doing here?  No, we’ve never met, but I know very well who you are, since the last time you tried to impersonate Kid Curry, they sent me your photograph to identify you.  I’m Sheriff Lom Trevors, from Porterville, Wyoming.”

       “Oh.  Well, it’s kind of a long story, Sheriff Trevors,” Philpotts offered, with a certain degree of embarrassment.

       Whittaker spoke up.  “He’s not Kid Curry?”

       “Definitely not.  He’s a retail store clerk from Minneapolis, Minnesota.”

       Whittaker made a sign to his deputy, who unlocked the cell door and stood back.  “Young fellow, you’re free to go.  And next time, I hope you’ll have more sense than to start sayin’ you’re a well-known outlaw, just for your own amusement.  You’ve caused us a lot of trouble, and nearly got yourself hanged.”

       “Yes, sir, I know.  I’ve learned my lesson.  I won’t do it again.”

       “I’m not so sure of that.”  Trevors laid a hand on Philpotts’s shoulder.  “I know Sheriff Whittaker said you were free to go, but I’d like to have a serious talk with you before you do.  Sheriff, is there a place I can take him to buy him a drink?  You don’t need him for anything more, do you?”

       “No, we don’t need him.  The saloon across the street serves pretty good beer; in fact, it’s brewed somewhere around here,” replied Whittaker.  “Trevors, when you’re done talking to him, would you come back over here?  Or maybe we could meet you in the hotel for supper.  The thing is, I know Judge Carter would like to talk to you, to discuss this case.  So would I, for that matter.”

       “Sure, be happy to help out.”

       “I’ll tell the judge, and we’ll come over to the hotel in about an hour, all right?”

       Trevors nodded.  “I’ll be waiting for you.”

***   ***   ***

       Over drinks at a corner table in the saloon, Trevors eyed Philpotts with exasperation.  “If you keep this up, you are going to get yourself killed.  Trying to impersonate a man with a reputation as a fast draw, like Kid Curry has, can get you all sorts of unwelcome attention.  Not just from the law, but from men who’d like to prove that they can draw faster.  And since you’re not very fast, I take it …” Philpotts shook his head, “you’d have no chance at all.  You’re gonna end up dead.  Is it worth it, just for a little excitement?”

       “No, sir,” Fred replied, sobered.  He sipped his beer.  “I understand a little better now.  I don’t want that kind of attention.  And … and before, I was kinda bored with life, not carin’ whether I lived or died, since I haven’t done anything worth doin’.  But now, well, there’s a girl … anyway, I’ve got something to live for, now.  Or someone.” 

       “You do?  That’s good hearing!  Then I might just be able to believe you if you promise me you won’t pull this fool stunt again.”

       “Oh, yes, sir.  I promise I won’t.  You can be sure of that.”

       “I’ve got another piece of advice for you,” said Trevors, after a moment’s thought.  “If I were you, I’d get a different shirt.  A bright blue shirt is kind of a recognition mark for Kid Curry, or at least, it was, back when he was robbin’ banks and trains on a regular basis.  From what I’ve heard, he doesn’t seem to be doing that any more.  But I’d get rid of the blue shirt.”

Philpotts and Kid Curry in nearly identical blue shirts

       Surprised, Fred realized the lawman was right.  When he had met the real Kid Curry, three days previously, sure enough, the outlaw had been wearing a blue shirt almost the same shade as the one he himself still had on.  He looked back at Trevors, trying to decide how much to tell him, and decided that he really couldn’t risk saying anything.  He owed Hannibal Heyes and Kid Curry so much that to tell a lawman about them, even though they were not still in town, would not be the action of anyone who wished them well.  He nodded, but said nothing.

       “Tell me about this girl,” Lom encouraged him.  “And do you want another beer?”

       “Yes, thanks.”  He watched the lawman flag down a bar maid and give the order.  “Well, she lives right here in town.  Her name’s Penny Roach.  She thinks I’m, well, really something, I guess, just the way I am, and with my own name.  We’re planning to get married, though I’m not really sure what I’m gonna do for a living.  I don’t have any skills or talents or anything that anybody out here would pay me for.  Maybe I ought to just go back to Minnesota.  She’d go with me, I know.  We’ve talked about it some.”

       “If you’re willing to work hard, I think you’ll find there are lots of things you can do in the West.  Maybe not here, but in Cheyenne, or even down in Denver.”  Lom was struck by an afterthought.  He knew that the original murder charge had stemmed from a robbery gone wrong, and deduced that Philpotts might be short of funds.  “Do you have enough money to manage until you can find work?”

       “Yes, I, well, Penny and I, we have enough.”  Fred didn’t say that in addition to Penny’s wages and tips from the saloon work she had been doing, Hannibal Heyes had given him a sizeable sum, apparently worried that he would get in trouble again if he ran out of money.  He hadn’t counted the wad of currency carefully yet, but it looked to be about three hundred dollars.  Heyes had assured him that it consisted of poker winnings, not the proceeds of a robbery, so he could use it in good conscience.  “Sheriff Trevors, thanks for everything.  I won’t let you down, I promise.”

       “Good.”  Lom stood up, putting a coin on the table for the bar maid.  “Then my trip to Montana wasn’t wasted.”

       “No, sir, it wasn’t.”  The men shook hands, and Lom left the saloon to get checked into the hotel, where his baggage had already been taken.

 

       Over supper in the hotel dining room, Lom talked with Sheriff Whittaker and Judge Carter about the murder trial, and the county’s foiled attempt to hang Fred Philpotts for the crime. 

       “It’s God’s mercy,” said the judge earnestly, “that this fellow Jonathan Curry happened along when he did.  I suppose, if Philpotts isn’t really Kid Curry, that can’t be this other fellow’s real name, and they’re not really cousins.  But whoever he is, he wouldn’t give up.  Kept us from hanging an innocent man.”

       “Sounds like a good man, whoever he was,” Lom agreed.  “Tell me what he did.”

       “He admitted in my court that he and his two friends had done what they did because they believed Fred Philpotts to be innocent of the murder, and couldn’t figure out any other way to save his life.”  Judge Carter went on to give a brief summary of ‘Jonathan Curry’ and his activities on behalf of Philpotts, supplemented from time to time by Sheriff Whittaker’s recollections.

       The man they knew as Jonathan Curry had arrived in town at the beginning of the murder trial.  He had declared himself to be Kid Curry’s cousin and had gone to visit him in the jail.  Then, when Philpotts, whom everybody thought to be Kid Curry, had been convicted and sentenced to be hanged, his cousin had shown up on horseback in the very nick of time, after the rope had already been placed around the condemned man’s neck.  He said that their grandmother Curry was on her way, and pleaded to have the man’s hanging postponed until she could get there to see him.

       “So I agreed to it,” explained the judge.  “After all, my wife and I have grandsons ourselves.  I couldn’t help but think, what if one of them were in such trouble?”

       “When Mrs. Curry arrived on the train—anyway, the person we thought was her,” Whittaker joined in, “I sent Deputy Hollis to meet her, and he told me there was another man there with this Jonathan Curry, waiting to meet the train.  Fellow said he was Thaddeus Jones, a friend of the family.”

       “Ah.”  Lom nodded wisely, taking another helping of the mashed potatoes and gravy they’d been served with the excellent roast beef.  With the mention of that name, things were starting to be clearer.  Since he knew that Thaddeus Jones was the real Kid Curry, that left little doubt in his mind who the mysterious Jonathan Curry had been.  Grandmother Curry, however, was unexpected.  With Heyes and Curry accounted for, he wondered whom Heyes could possibly have talked into pretending to be their grandmother, since the real Grandmother Curry, Trevors knew, was long since deceased.  He urged the sheriff to continue with the story.

       “I don’t know what Jones had to do with it,” said Whittaker, “but it’s a fact that when we recaptured this Philpotts fellow, Jones was there, along with Jonathan Curry.  I’m gettin’ ahead of my story, though.”  He paused to take a forkful of meat from his plate.  “This roast is really good tonight.  Anyway, after Mrs. Curry had checked into the hotel, she and young Curry came over to the jail to see the Kid.  I said they had to be searched, so Deputy Hollis and Jonathan Curry brought back one of the girls from the saloon.  As a matter of fact, it was Penny Roach, who had testified at the trial that she was acquainted with the Kid.  I suppose I should have suspected somethin’, but it was all done so smooth I didn’t.  We was expectin’ the Devil’s Hole gang to maybe come to town and try to bust the Kid out of jail, but I didn’t expect anything like what actually happened.  And we never did see any of the Devil’s Hole gang.”

       “Go on,” Trevors urged.  “I have to hear the rest of this.  It sounds to me like you know your job well, Sheriff.  You’d thought of everything you could, and taken every precaution.  It’s just that … well, go on, by all means.”

       “We searched young Curry outside the jail building, and Miss Roach searched Grandma Curry inside, in my office, and said she wasn’t carrying anything.  I started to open the safe where I keep the keys to the cell block, but when I told Hollis to take Miss Roach back over to the saloon, all of a sudden this Jonathan Curry pulled a gun from underneath the grandmother’s dress.  We all put up our hands, but I warned him that I wasn’t about to finish opening the safe for him.  He’d need blasting powder to get into it, I said, so I kept urging him to give himself up, ’cause they sure weren’t gonna get out of there with the Kid, ’lessen they had the keys.”

       Lom actually chuckled.  “Let me guess.  He opened the safe by himself, without knowing the combination.”

       “Why, yes!  How’d you know?”

       “I’ve got a pretty good idea now what was going on, Sheriff, at least part of it.  Tell you later.  Finish your story.”

       “Well, they tied me and my deputies up and locked us into the cells, then they left:  Jonathan Curry, Grandma Curry, Penny Roach, and the Kid.  We got loose and got a posse together quick enough, and when we found they’d taken four horses from the livery stable, we set out after ’em.  But we lost ’em in the dark.  Recovered the horses all right, though.”  He stopped, to ask the waiter about dessert, since Judge Carter had said the cost of the meal was on him.  When all three of the men had settled on some of the pastries the hotel was famous for, Whittaker wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and continued.

       “I told one of my deputies, the next day, to check on anybody that might have arrived at the hotel round about the time as Grandma Curry, ’cause I just had a suspicion things weren’t what they seemed, with her.  Turned out that there was an elderly man who had come in just a couple hours after she did, and registered as a Mr. O’Sullivan.  We searched his room, and found enough to indicate that he might well have passed himself off as Grandma Curry.  So we arrested him as being complicit in the jailbreak.”

 _O’Sullivan?_ thought Lom.  _Oh, yeah, I kinda remember Heyes saying he had a friend by that name who was a retired confidence man.  Well, I’ll be.  Leave it to Heyes to come up with something that clever._

       “As luck would have it,” Whittaker went on, “a family that had been out that way with a wagon came into town, sayin’ their children had heard voices and a noise like somebody banging on metal, down in an abandoned mine shaft near there.  We thought it might be the Curry party, so we went out again.  I planned everything real careful.  We figured they’d make a run for the train after dark, when it stopped for water, and if we could light things up at just the right time, we could maybe catch ’em without any shootin’.  There was a mill pond in front of the mine shaft, so we poured kerosene on the water and made torches, ready to light when I gave the word.  When we heard someone trying to make a run for it, we lit the kerosene.  Caught ’em—well, at least we caught the two men I thought was Jonathan Curry and the Kid.  They dropped their guns real peaceable-like when I yelled to ’em.”

       “And nobody got hurt,” said Trevors.  “You know, I’m developing a healthy respect for you, Sheriff Whittaker.”

       “Thanks.  I never saw no reason for killin’, ’lessen we have to.  But I soon saw I’d made a mistake.  One of ’em was Jonathan Curry, all right, but the other was a young fella I’d seen around town and hadn’t paid much attention to.  Hollis told me that he was the fella from the train, Thaddeus Jones.  We checked the mine, and found the Kid and the girl.  Took ’em all back to town, put ’em in jail, and let Judge Carter here know we’d caught ’em.”

       “And I had just had to deal with a new factor in the case.  Two men came into town with a prisoner and claimed the reward that was being offered for Jack Brown, the man that this Fred Philpotts told us had actually done the murder.  He had brown hair and brown eyes, was a smooth talker—a lot of us, including me,” said the judge ruefully, “thought he might be Hannibal Heyes.  In fact, I was really out of line, urging young Philpotts—well, we thought he was Kid Curry—anyway, while he was up on the gallows, I kept sayin’ that he should admit to us that this Jack Brown was really Hannibal Heyes.”

       “So did I,” confessed the sheriff.  “Told him it wouldn’t do no good to lie—he oughta just say it was Heyes.”  He shrugged.  “So he admitted it was Heyes.  It was right after that his cousin showed up with the word that their grandmother was coming.”

       Everything was now perfectly clear, thought Lom.  Heyes had been within earshot, waiting to see if things would work themselves out, or perhaps with another plan in mind, but when this Philpotts donkey had implicated him, he’d had to do something fast.

       “Yes,” continued Carter, “only it wasn’t Hannibal Heyes.  Sheriff Whittaker and I, without meaning to, contributed to another possible miscarriage of justice, saddling Hannibal Heyes with a murder charge when as far as I know, he’s never done anything like that.  But you’d know that better than I, Sheriff Trevors, being from Wyoming.”

       “No, you’re quite right.  Neither Heyes nor Curry ever murdered anybody during their entire outlaw careers.  They never even shot anybody.  That’s pretty well-known down in Wyoming.  It’s one of the reasons the territorial government hasn’t had much luck finding rail crews and express messengers who will testify against them; that’s if anybody ever catches them.  I think some of the Union Pacific men actually like them.”

       Judge Carter continued his part of the story.  “I authorized payment of the reward, and then I held a hearing right then and there with this Jack Brown, just taking a preliminary statement, since he had no objection to speaking without counsel present.  He admitted he’d done the murder in a moment of panic, told us the whole story under oath, cleared the fellow we’d thought was Kid Curry completely.  He said he didn’t know whether the fellow was Kid Curry or not, though he took leave to doubt it, but that he himself certainly wasn’t Hannibal Heyes.”

       Trevors nodded.  _At least that’s a matter of record now, and I don’t have to do anything about it_.

       “I had the sheriff here bring in the five prisoners:  one now guilty only of possibly being Kid Curry and being wanted for armed robbery in Wyoming, and the other four to be charged with planning and executing a jail break, and aiding and abetting the escape of a wanted fugitive.  Since they’d done what they did only to make sure that young Philpotts wasn’t hanged unjustly, I told them there were no charges against them.  I said we’d all be better pleased if they left town and never came back.  Except for Miss Roach, of course.  I gather she and Mr. Philpotts have plans of their own for the future.  And that’s all there was to it, except for waiting for someone to get here from Wyoming and tell us whether we had Kid Curry or not.  You’ve done that, so I guess it’s over now, but it’s got to be one of the strangest cases I ever encountered.”

       “It’s about to get stranger yet,” said Lom.  “You see, I’ve got some information that neither of you had.”

       “Thought you might,” said Whittaker, with satisfaction.  “By all means, fill us in.  Maybe you know who this Jonathan Curry was, and why he was so anxious to clear this Philpotts fella.”

       “I know exactly who he was.  I was pretty sure before you described how he opened your safe, because this whole series of fantastic plans sounds like something he’d do, but after that, there wasn’t any doubt, because safecracking, like that, just using his fingers to work the combination, is one of his better-known skills.”

       “Whose skills?” demanded Whittaker.

       “Hannibal Heyes.”  As neither man seemed to be able to speak for a moment, Trevors continued, “The funny thing is, he _is_ Kid Curry’s cousin, but it’s through his mother, who was a Curry.  He was telling you as much of the truth as he could.”

       “So we actually had Hannibal Heyes in our jail,” said Whittaker, bemused.  “Not Kid Curry, but we did have Heyes.”

       “You had Kid Curry in your jail, too.  Thaddeus Jones is the alias he’s been using since he and Heyes went straight about six months ago.”  Lom took advantage of the stunned silence to finish his coffee, pour himself another cup, and eat the last of the sweet bun on his plate.  “I expect both of ’em came here as fast as they could when they heard that Kid Curry was being tried for murder.  They can’t afford to have anything like that on their records, especially now.”

       “Well, I’ll be…!  I suppose we’re lucky they didn’t rob the bank while they were here … wait a minute.  Did you say they went straight?” exclaimed Whittaker.

       “Yes.”  Trevors looked the other sheriff straight in the eye, then looked over at the judge.  “And they wouldn’t have robbed your bank.  You’ve got my word on it.  I can’t say that strongly enough.”

       “I’m glad to hear it.”  Judge Carter was nodding.  “I suppose it wouldn’t be any use asking how you know that.  You must know them both pretty well.”

       “I did, at one time.  So it was me they came to when they wanted information about this amnesty program that Wyoming is trying out.  I had to tell them I didn’t think the governor had outlaws of their stature in mind when he created the program, but they begged me to at least go to Cheyenne and find out what I could, whether Governor Hoyt would even be willing to consider it for them.  They behaved themselves real well while I was gone, even foiled an attempted bank robbery in Porterville, as I have on the testimony of my deputy and the bank manager.  That was in October of last year.”

       Carter was leaning forward in his chair now.  “That’s very interesting.  I know they’ve been talking about doing something similar here in Montana Territory.  If the program is working, we’d sure like to know about it up here.  Did the governor agree?  You said Heyes and Curry are going straight now.  I suppose an amnesty offer would be a pretty good incentive.”

       Trevors hesitated for a moment.  He’d gone too far now to draw back, and both of these men were honorable and law-abiding.  “This is a secret.  Very few people know except Heyes, Curry, me, and the few we’ve had to tell.  I’d like your word it won’t go any further until you hear otherwise from me.”

       “Sure.”  Whittaker nodded.

       “Of course,” Carter assured him.

       “Governor Hoyt did offer them an amnesty, or rather, he promised ’em one, but it’s conditional.  They’ve got to keep out of trouble for at least a year, maybe a little more, before they get it.  Meantime, they’re still wanted, with rewards on their heads.  That doesn’t make it easy, but both of them were willing to try.  They promised me faithfully that they’d keep their end of the bargain, and they’ve been doing that right along.”  Lom smiled.  “So I’m glad to hear they were able to help you out here, while keeping their own reputations clean, of course.  If, when the time comes, you’d be willing to sign an affidavit for them, I know they’d be grateful.”

       “I think we’d both be happy to do that, without question,” replied the judge.  He glanced sharply aside at Whittaker, who was an outspoken advocate of law and order—perhaps the sheriff wouldn’t be willing to do what he might view as ‘coddling criminals.’ 

       But the sheriff was nodding.  “I’ll do that, for sure,” he said.  “I wouldn’t want to put obstacles in the way of good men who’ve decided to turn their lives around.  Especially since they’re not suspected of any capital crimes.  If we had more men like them who were willing to take that kind of a risk, my job would be easier.  You can count on us to do what we can, Sheriff Trevors.  And you can tell ’em so—Heyes and Curry—if you see them again.  I sorta took a liking to that rascal Heyes.”


End file.
